Mr. Kim's Neighborhood

Plot elements in a schlock spy thriller? Actually, they're North
Korea's premier exports, the tawdry trade items of a poverty-wracked nation
whose ruling clique lives quite well on the profits of drugs, weapons,
bribery and plain old criminal fraud.

At its iron and evil core, Kim Jong Il's North Korean regime is
a criminal syndicate with a million-man army and now crude nuclear weapons.

It's also a frightened clique, whose latest nuclear tantrum has
nudged its Asian neighbors closer to accepting the U.S. view that the regime
cannot be reformed and a "containment and negotiation" strategic approach to
Pyongyang simply gives the regime more time to deploy weapons of mass
destruction. South Korea's "sunshine policy" of "generous engagement" was an
utter failure, merely a cash cow for the North Korean regime.

North Korea's heroin escapades demonstrate the regime's
calculated depravity -- and why it ultimately has no place in 21st century
Asia.

For years, the rumor mill had North Korean diplomats meeting
embassy expenses by dealing drugs. The amounts were supposedly small -- a
kilo or two slipped in via diplomatic pouch, the proceeds going to keep the
lights on and fund clandestine operations.

On April 20, an Australian special operations unit seized a
heroin-loaded North Korean freighter in the Tasman Sea off the Australian
coast. A Washington Post story noted the freighter, the Pong Su, had
expanded fuel tanks for long-distance operations and sophisticated
communications gear. Get cranking on that novel -- she's a spy ship turned
into a specialized drug delivery vessel.

The Pong Su bust exposes drug trafficking as North Korean state
policy. While other Asian nations invest in education and high-tech
manufacturing, North Korea's Marxists put scarce resources into smuggling
smack. Heroin sales provide just enough cash to provide regime bigwigs with
plush digs and, one supposes, further nuclear research.

Crime pays for Pyongyang. For a decade, the NoKo cartel ran a
successful bribery scam. Pay us off and we won't make bombs was the deal
Pyongyang offered the Clinton administration in 1994. Washington supplied
heavy fuel and light water reactors. The United States hoped that meeting
North Korea's basic energy and food requirements would ultimately reduce
belligerency.

North Korea never canned its nuclear program, and last year the
Bush administration caught the cheats.

Now, Pyongyang's mobsters are into extortion. Unless Washington
ponies up cash, they threaten to sell nuclear weapons to interested buyers.
Saddam's no longer in the market, but Al Qaeda is.

In the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Pyongyang's
strident threats sound, well, a bit too strident. While many military
analysts believe North Korea's would resist a hypothetical U.S. military
attack, Kim's dictatorship knows it's vulnerable. Kim saw what "out of
nowhere" quick-reaction U.S. precision airstrikes did to the Iraqi
leadership.

Now the regime needs to know it's strident threats have
backfired.

Japan, the presumed soft touch in the blackmail scam, is now
discussing improving its offensive military capacity, and that could mean
Japanese nuclear weapons. No one in Asia wants a militarily resurgent Japan,
particularly China.

If the SARS virus worries Beijing, you can bet Shanghai those
worries are small change compared to the political and military significance
of a Japanese bomb, or a high-tech Japanese Army and Air Force prepared for
Asian expeditionary operations.

China is playing an important role in current North Korean
negotiations, but it must do more. If we're to avoid a nuclear disaster in
Asia, the United States can't be the only cop on the beat. Beijing doesn't
want Japan wearing a sheriff's badge -- that means Beijing has to act like a
responsible regional power.

China sent North Korea a message when it briefly cut off oil
supplies, but brief doesn't cut it with these drug lords. Kim's regime says
imposing an embargo on North Korea is an act of war. But a "slow war" is
already being waged, with heroin an arrow in Pyongyang's arsenal. The United
States is at war with Al Qaeda, and North Korea has threatened to sell Al
Qaeda nukes. Beijing knows this.

A "python" embargo -- an all embracing squeeze on Kim's
regime -- is rapidly becoming the best option for ending Pyongyang's crime
spree. A real python embargo means no goods leave, no goods enter, by land,
sea or air.

It's time for Beijing to decide if it's going to help police the
neighborhood.